Migration with local public goods and the gains from changing places

Without public goods and under fairly standard assumptions, in Hammond and Sempere (J Pub Econ Theory, 8: 145–170, 2006) we show that freeing migration enhances the potential Pareto gains from free trade. Here, we present a generalization allowing local public goods subject to congestion. Unlike the standard literature on fiscal externalities, our result relies on fixing both local public goods and congestion levels at their status quo values. This allows constrained efficient and potentially Pareto improving population exchanges regulated only through appropriate residence charges, which can be regarded as Pigouvian congestion taxes

Case-based learning: Predictive features in indexing

Interest in psychological experimentation from the Artificial Intelligence community often takes the form of rigorous post-hoc evaluation of completed computer models. Through an example of our own collaborative research, we advocate a different view of how psychology and AI may be mutually relevant, and propose an integrated approach to the study of learning in humans and machines. We begin with the problem of learning appropriate indices for storing and retrieving information from memory. From a planning task perspective, the most useful indices may be those that predict potential problems and access relevant plans in memory, improving the planner's ability to predict and avoid planning failures. This “predictive features” hypothesis is then supported as a psychological claim, with results showing that such features offer an advantage in terms of the selectivity of reminding because they more distinctively characterize planning situations where differing plans are appropriate.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46928/1/10994_2004_Article_BF00993173.pd

Exploring self-determined solutions to service and system challenges to promote social and emotional wellbeing in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: a qualitative study

PUBLISHED 22 September 2023Introduction: Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living on Kaurna Country in northern Adelaide experience adverse health and social circumstances. The Taingiwilta Pirku Kawantila study sought to understand challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and identify solutions for the health and social service system to promote social and emotional wellbeing. Methods: This qualitative study applied Indigenous methodologies undertaken with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander governance and leadership. A respected local Aboriginal person engaged with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community members and service providers through semi-structured interviews and yarning circles that explored community needs and challenges, service gaps, access barriers, success stories, proposed strategies to address service and system challenges, and principles and values for service design. A content analysis identified the breadth of challenges in addition to describing key targets to empower and connect communities and optimize health and social services to strengthen individual and collective social and emotional wellbeing. Results: Eighty-three participants contributed to interviews and yarning circles including 17 Aboriginal community members, 38 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service providers, and 28 non-Indigenous service providers. They expressed the need for codesigned, strengths-based, accessible and flexible services delivered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers with lived experience employed in organisations with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership and governance. Community hubs and cultural events in addition to one-stop-shop service centres and pre-crisis mental health, drug and alcohol and homelessness services were among many strategies identified. Conclusion: Holistic approaches to the promotion of social and emotional wellbeing are critical. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are calling for places in the community to connect and practice culture. They seek culturally safe systems that enable equitable access to and navigation of health and social services. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce leading engagement with clients is seen to safeguard against judgement and discrimination, rebuild community trust in the service system and promote streamlined access to crucial services.Anna P. Dawson, Eugene Warrior, Odette Pearson, Mark A. Boyd, Judith Dwyer, Kim Morey, Tina Brodie, Kurt Towers, Sonia Waters, Cynthia Avila, Courtney Hammond, Katherine J. Lake, Uncle, Frank Lampard, Uncle, Frank Wanganeen, Olive Bennell, Darrien Bromley, Toni Shearing, Nathan Rigney, Schania Czygan, Nikki Clinch, Andrea Pitson, Alex Brown and Natasha J. Howar

A conserved fungal glycosyltransferase facilitates pathogenesis of plants by enabling hyphal growth on solid surfaces

Article Authors Metrics Comments Related Content Abstract Author summary Introduction Results and discussion Conclusions Methods Supporting information Acknowledgments References Reader Comments (0) Media Coverage (0) Figures Abstract Pathogenic fungi must extend filamentous hyphae across solid surfaces to cause diseases of plants. However, the full inventory of genes which support this is incomplete and many may be currently concealed due to their essentiality for the hyphal growth form. During a random T-DNA mutagenesis screen performed on the pleomorphic wheat (Triticum aestivum) pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici, we acquired a mutant unable to extend hyphae specifically when on solid surfaces. In contrast “yeast-like” growth, and all other growth forms, were unaffected. The inability to extend surface hyphae resulted in a complete loss of virulence on plants. The affected gene encoded a predicted type 2 glycosyltransferase (ZtGT2). Analysis of >800 genomes from taxonomically diverse fungi highlighted a generally widespread, but discontinuous, distribution of ZtGT2 orthologues, and a complete absence of any similar proteins in non-filamentous ascomycete yeasts. Deletion mutants of the ZtGT2 orthologue in the taxonomically un-related fungus Fusarium graminearum were also severely impaired in hyphal growth and non-pathogenic on wheat ears. ZtGT2 expression increased during filamentous growth and electron microscopy on deletion mutants (ΔZtGT2) suggested the protein functions to maintain the outermost surface of the fungal cell wall. Despite this, adhesion to leaf surfaces was unaffected in ΔZtGT2 mutants and global RNAseq-based gene expression profiling highlighted that surface-sensing and protein secretion was also largely unaffected. However, ΔZtGT2 mutants constitutively overexpressed several transmembrane and secreted proteins, including an important LysM-domain chitin-binding virulence effector, Zt3LysM. ZtGT2 likely functions in the synthesis of a currently unknown, potentially minor but widespread, extracellular or outer cell wall polysaccharide which plays a key role in facilitating many interactions between plants and fungi by enabling hyphal growth on solid matrices

Effects of sleep deprivation on neural functioning: an integrative review

Sleep deprivation has a broad variety of effects on human performance and neural functioning that manifest themselves at different levels of description. On a macroscopic level, sleep deprivation mainly affects executive functions, especially in novel tasks. Macroscopic and mesoscopic effects of sleep deprivation on brain activity include reduced cortical responsiveness to incoming stimuli, reflecting reduced attention. On a microscopic level, sleep deprivation is associated with increased levels of adenosine, a neuromodulator that has a general inhibitory effect on neural activity. The inhibition of cholinergic nuclei appears particularly relevant, as the associated decrease in cortical acetylcholine seems to cause effects of sleep deprivation on macroscopic brain activity. In general, however, the relationships between the neural effects of sleep deprivation across observation scales are poorly understood and uncovering these relationships should be a primary target in future research

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society